I said hello and shook you by the hand but as a 35 year old man thought introducing myself with my forum name a little ridiculous. I thoroughly enjoyed the show. The rapport between you, Buddy and Dan was great and special guest appearances just added to a really feel good show. Standouts for me were the remixes of old favourites and the Russell Jones piece was incredible. The new material is really exciting too, I was just gutted there weren't more people there to enjoy it. Best of luck with the rest of the tour, here's a few more pics from last night. Apologies for my lack of technical prowess:

Tue Sep 13, 2011 4:11 pm

Specialist

Joined: 18 Mar 2008
Posts: 89
Location: Bristol, England

See you tomorrow in Bristol man. Can't wait.

Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:55 am

coma emilio

Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 1115

the glasgow show was really great.
a real shame about Buddy Peace not being able to play a solo set though.
next time!

the gig was marred slightly by some idiot who was loud, drunk and obnoxious. i thought he took the huff and went home when Dolan spoke to him before the ODB poem. sadly, he came back.

oh and the brass band at the end were really great too!

Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:31 am

Specialist

Joined: 18 Mar 2008
Posts: 89
Location: Bristol, England

Bristol let you down last night man. Sorry. Hard to believe it was the same venue and city that hosted that incredible night a year ago when you smashed it and Sage said goodbye to touring. Thanks for coming to see us. I thought it was another incredible set. I loved "Who killed Russell Jones" and the new song and Marvin was as powerful, intense and moving as ever. Hope this experience won't put you off coming to see us in Bristol again. Apathy is always a problem here, but there are people appreciative of your music and believers in SFR. Where they all were last night, I'm not sure. Hope the rest of the tour goes well man. I'll be writing a review on the gig later for a website and magazine here. I'll post it when I'm done.
Bizarro Pro.

Fri Sep 16, 2011 2:19 am

b. dolanFBI agent

Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 5714

Specialist wrote: Bristol let you down last night man. Sorry. Hard to believe it was the same venue and city that hosted that incredible night a year ago when you smashed it and Sage said goodbye to touring. Thanks for coming to see us. I thought it was another incredible set. I loved "Who killed Russell Jones" and the new song and Marvin was as powerful, intense and moving as ever. Hope this experience won't put you off coming to see us in Bristol again. Apathy is always a problem here, but there are people appreciative of your music and believers in SFR. Where they all were last night, I'm not sure. Hope the rest of the tour goes well man. I'll be writing a review on the gig later for a website and magazine here. I'll post it when I'm done.
Bizarro Pro.

Ah man, don't let Bristol get YOU down ;)

It was the weakest turnout of the tour, but it wasn't thaaat bad really. The room felt full enough to have a good show, which is all I really care about. Our expectations are humble on this tour, as it's my first headliner and a year and a half after my last album's release... this was just sort of a run following my getting booked at Bestival to try things out.

The general concesus between the folks involves is that it's been solid enough to build on, so i'm happy. We'll be back around album time and I'm sure kids will show up unaware of how much fun they missed.

One year ago, almost to the night, to be inside The Fleece was to be part of a sweaty, emotional, almost reverential experience as a beyond-capacity crowd bid farewell to one of the legends of intelligent, anti-establishment hip-hop Sage Francis, as he hung up his touring cape.

Rhode Island’s B Dolan, Sage's best friend, Strange Famous label-mate and man most likely to take on the baton, provided support that night with a short, intense display of thought-provoking polemics delivered at machine-gun pace.

Tonight, Dolan's back on his first headline tour of the UK, backed by UK beat-makers Dan Le Sac and Buddy Peace, but you can almost hear the transatlantic tumbleweed blowing through the venue as our hero steps up to take up the mantle of SFR's touring standard bearer; a small core of devoted followers hug the stage and a sparse gathering of curious observers lurk in the shadows.

With Le Sac and Peace onboard, most of the material is re-worked and almost unrecognisable from the album versions ¬– perhaps disorientating, but indicative of an artist unafraid to challenge his work and unwilling to rest in a creative rut.

Turning his activist guns on the banks, ‘Economy Of Words’ is dedicated to "everyone who's skint", and is powered along by a deep, undulating groove before being directed through a brief take on Dire Straits' ‘Money For Nothing’ and into a stirring, breathless double-time mid-section.

The back half of the crowd only start to move once Dolan's mash-up of ‘50 Ways To Bleed Your Customer’ and M.I.A's ‘Paper Planes’ arrives, the bald-headed rapper removing his grubby cream suit jacket to reveal a noose fastened around his neck and quipping "Bristol, you showed up".

‘Leaving New York’ is given a dramatic re-working by Le Sac and Peace, embellished with a piano arpeggio and post-rock overtones, and ‘Joan Of Arcadia’ sounds even more spooky and ethereal thanks to their haunting, hymnal contributions.

The old Southern states union standard, ‘Which Side Are You On?’ is woven into a new song, which sees Dolan raging at homophobic and bigoted MCs and promoters before ‘House Of Bees’, with its incessant, pounding backbeat keeps up the attack on the music business. ‘Heart Failure’ is slowed down and imbued with post-apocalyptic gloom, a clearly-disappointed Dolan sighing "dying crowd" at its conclusion before resuming his assault on an industry with the blood of many departed artists on its hands via a stirring spoken-word piece about the ODB – ‘Who Killed Russell Jones?’ Late Fleece performers past Amy Winehouse and Jeff Buckley look down approvingly from their posters above the bar.

The production duo leave the stage for the dark and emotionally intensive ‘Marvin’, performed faithfully to the album version and the evening's high point, reaching a towering crescendo as the story of Marvin Gaye's murder by his own father comes to its tragic conclusion.

A needless heckler is dealt with in fairly brutal fashion before an encore including ‘Kitchen Sink’, ‘Heart Failure’ and ‘One Breath Left’. Tonight's evidence showcases a performance poet, lyricist, formidable rapper, tireless activist and fitting figure to build on the foundations laid by Francis and Strange Famous over the past 15 years. Bristol missed out. Dolan tells me afterwards: "Everywhere else on the tour has been dope." Go figure.

Fri Sep 16, 2011 3:37 am

redefyned

Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 380
Location: London

Pretty spot-on review.

Fri Sep 16, 2011 3:59 am

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